


Alpine start

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [41]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Abelism, Gen, George Miller Style Timeline, Misogyny, The Citadel was a terrible place, Unhealthy Relationships, Warning: Immortan Joe, implied domestic and emotional abuse and manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5870809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alpine start: An early morning start to ascend before the sun softens the snow or to return before nightfall.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>"Sorry. I'd thought it would help, for him to be with us when we— See how nice it can be."</p><p>Furiosa sighed, glancing down, shaking her head a little at herself. She really shouldn't have had any hopes on that man taking her up on her offers. Any offers. Salty ones or otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alpine start

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might recognize the character that we based Feng off of; keep in mind that we changed some drastic things about her background, family history, and ancestry on purpose.

“The surgery will go on as scheduled.”

“But the blood volunteers disappeared for some reason, even when we offer double rations,” Capable protested to Feng, “I can't find anybody anymore. Would you really go ahead even with no standby’s?”

“Every surgery has been going smoothly,” Feng scoffed, “And War boys heal fast.”

Capable made a face, jaw set, "I'm going to keep searching. You can test for blood types easily, right?"

“Tch, yes,” Feng dismissed, “Though it would be far easier just to check the markings on bloodbag’s backs, no need to repeat another’s work.”

“Exactly. We’re not repeating _anyone_ else’s work; let’s not repeat Joe’s mistakes.” the Tribune said firmly, “We're going to find _new_ people, who actually _volunteer_ as donor."

“Though you were all about reclaiming the useful bits of the old Citadel, even the parts that are unslightly,” The old woman’s voice was flat, as she straightened from her work, looking angry and disturbed that she was angry. “Are you only choosing the parts that make you feel good about yourselves, instead of that which’ll actually _work_?”

Capable stared at the old woman, shoulders set in a hard line, and took a long, slow, deliberate breath. She tried to remind herself that Feng, too, was a product of the life she'd lived. To remind herself not to react to Feng’s words, to not challenge her on details and semantics and get caught up in her and Miss Giddy’s long running argument, but to draw her line in the sand and stick with it. "People are not things. If they don't want to be donors, they won't be made to be, like Joe made them."

"Well, you look for new bloodbags, then. I'll go ahead with the surgeries. Haven't needed a bloodbag so far, anyway."

 

* * *

 

Max drifted in Toast’s wake and felt small behind her, absurdly. She was striding through the garage caverns like it was all her space when Max couldn't even seem to find space inside his own skin.

“We could use someone willing to survey east, if you’re keen on drifting off into a fog again,” Toast snarked around her toothpick, as she pointedly avoided looking at him, shuffling through the barrels down in the storage rack with a furrow on her forehead. “Janey has gone over the path you’d taken parallel to the mountain, but most of it’s barren now.”

“Chewed dry.” Max suggested, eyes drifting towards the wide mouth of the garage, searching for the horizon. He needed to get out there. Or, rather, away from here.

“Like that,” the Tribune nodded, “Guzzoline siphoned off, salvaged picked over by Noxious’ crew and Janey’s, most edibles for miles around eaten by those War Parties.”

“East is not barren yet.” Max asked more than stated.

“The areas in the opposite direction of the mountains, yeah, that’s the thought.” She _tched_ , “It’s not Buzzard territory in that direction but Joe was nervous about something. Double-timed the scouts roving around there.”

“And now?” Many things have changed without Joe, and Max didn’t know the state of the patrols.

Toast banged her fist against a guzzoline barrel and it rang hollowly. She grimaced. “Most are like that.”

“Citadel needs guzz,” Max grunted.

“Going to have to make a decision about that soon. We have enough to fortify ourselves here, keep the cranes working and the aquifer going for a while longer, but soon it's either that or run for supplies from Gastown.”

“You mean if to make War on Gastown,” Cheedo murmured, slipping out of the shadows. “War pups still need more training, War boys still need more experience, and the new crews are still working out how to work together. None of the others of the Citadel are much keen on fighting and we shouldn’t pressure them to, I think.”

Max knew that the last they’ve known of Gastown was that their leader was dead and perhaps some Imperators tore off in that direction to claim the site. There was no news of who’d won or if some Imperator remaining behind at Gastown had taken control. They could well be walking into a war zone while attempting to trade for fuel, let alone the fact that the Wasteland made any transportation of goods a tricky business.

And they didn't have a war rig anymore. One of their trucks loaded with barrels would be far more vulnerable.

“We’d need to make War on Gastown just to get gas, but we don’t have the gas to make War,” Cheedo said glumly.

“Mmm, alternate source?” Max figeted.

“And you would know of a reliable one?” Toast raised an eyebrow at him while Cheedo made a questioning sound.

“Might know of a place where we could, hm, Barter. For some. I could leave today.” Max shifted, not thinking of…

Not _thinking._

“Barter?” Toast narrowed her eyes.

“Leaving already?” Cheedo asked voice low.  

Max opened his mouth slowly to somehow explain, but realized there was no way he was willing to say why he needed to be away from the Citadel.

"Just… getting restless," he mumbled.

 

* * *

 

"Have you seen him today?" Furiosa asked, trying not to feel guilty over eating her breakfast. Ace was sitting opposite her, not allowed to eat anything to prepare himself to be cut on. He'd said it was fine, he didn't want her to go without, but she didn't like the idea of it. It felt too much like Joe, having lavish meals in front of hungry people.

"I think he's with the Tribunes," Ace said. Looking wistfully at her lizard. "Sorry. I’d thought it would help, for him to be with us when we— See how nice it can be."

Furiosa sighed, glancing down, shaking her head a little at herself. She really shouldn't have had any hopes on that man taking her up on her offers. Any offers. Salty ones or otherwise. It had just… been nice, with Max there. She'd wished for that.

She still did.

 _How stupid, really._ That she had four crew members surrounding her at night and that she was disappointed with the thought that Max wanted no part of it.

"Think it scared him off, yesterday.”

“It shouldn’t have?” Ace felt his mouth go sideways with wryness, “What, do you think he’s going to just disappear off into the desert because of some sexing?”

“He’s been known to do that.”

“Sexing?” Ace asked doubtfully.

Furiosa rolled her eyes. “I meant _disappear._ ”

"Least _I'm_ doing my best to stick with ya."

She was abruptly reminded of what was about to happen today, as if she could possibly have forgotten. “When is Feng expecting you?”

He glanced at the angle of the light coming in through the window-openings. “Maybe right about now, I guess."

Furiosa felt her face going tight.

And Ace simply nodded, and gave her that crooked smile of his. And Furiosa felt her gut drop in that way when, two heartbeats past the moment a decision became irreversible, she realized just how stupid that decision really was.

_What if something goes wrong?_

But she swallowed the words.

“Let me walk with you,” she said instead.

 

* * *

 

She remembers clean floors, white walls, enough supplies as to never run out. New things needed and simply appearing by truck, arranged by others, paid for with money. _Paper_ money. She remembers tile, and sinks of trustworthy water, sterile face masks. She remembers holding out her hand and somebody holding ready a clean, new glove to sink her hand into, to be used once and then thrown away. She remembers it being her final year of surgical internship and being the jewel of her class, genius at every technique put in front of her, planning on specializing in cardiothoracic because it gave her the most intense surgeries.

 _There’s nothing quite like holding a heart in your hands_ , she said when asked.

(What no one ever saw is that the genius was more than just talent, just steady hands, or just her being a model of her race. What no one ever saw is that her nights were late and her days off were quiet and her breaks were spent pouring over texts, journals, papers, looking for a challenge.

What no one saw was that she wished she had someone in her year who was just as driven, but not put off when she was brilliant or abrasive.

Christina’s lunch table was often empty but for her.)

The young woman didn’t exactly _not_ pay attention to the world, it was just that the problems in front of her were so pressing. Competition was fierce for a job, rent was pricey, and not only that, she wanted to be renowned, she wanted to be Known. It was what her mom immigrated for, to give her the best opportunity and support system, and she wanted the world at her feet.

She’d thought that, with the skills she’d gained, there would be no doors closed to her, that it didn’t matter so long as her life was secure. There would always be a need for doctors. And perhaps the world was falling to pieces in the corners of far off countries, but Australia was safe, with abundant resources and water and self-contained. Christina lived in Sydney with a good-sized community of distant relatives who all knew each other and everything seemed fine.

At a Christmas garden party one warm and rather balmy night that last year, she met someone. A Joe Moore, jolly and charismatic and so enamored of her when she spoke of her accomplishments and of the papers she planned to write. She’d thought him only a military type, what her American cousins called a jarhead, but he asked intelligent questions and even though he didn’t know her specialties he still seemed interested and followed along as best he could.

She'd never met somebody who liked her sharp sides like he did. He visited as often as he could between his duties and her schedule and they made it work mostly because he respected her time and her other commitments.

Meanwhile Sydney… it started having blackouts. They started having trouble maintaining power during that next summer and in the fall they lost several people in ICU due to generator failures and fuel shortages. More and more burglaries started happening, and then riots.

Chinatown was hard hit, windows smashed of shops and homes, vulgar graffiti accusing them of not sharing, of being greedy, of taking their jobs. But at least everyone remained safe.

There was talk of travel, maybe going back to the mainland, maybe going to America, but before more than one or two families had left, the airports closed down. Shifts at the hospital became more and more chaotic, people fighting, desperate for painkillers, for medicine. Staff members failing to turn up for their shifts without explanation. New stock not arriving and the suppliers offering no replacement. And even then she didn’t start feeling trapped until.

Until.

It was only his hand on her shoulder that let her know she was shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she watched the makeshift pyre roar.

“We should go,” he said, as he helped her pack.

“It’s not safe here,” he said, as she stepped into the jeep.

(somewhere in the world, the sky glowed as trees bent over from a concussive blast, as the earth became sour from the toxic rain carried by the wind)

She found herself performing increasingly bizarre surgeries, makeshift and cobbled together things from what tools she has for injuries she’s never seen before, diseases that have no ilk.

 _Even as the world falls, they will always need doctors_ , she thought. She still held their hearts in her hands.

Joe called her marvelous and shiny and asked for her opinion when they travelled with his unit, dodging raiders and thieves and what were increasingly called tribes though they’d no indigenous peoples in their group.

“We need to be self-sustained,” she said, “A bulwark.”

“Some place with water deep in the earth, uncontaminated by the acid rain." He agreed.

“A castle with a moat?” The man who their enemies started calling the People Eater complained. “Ridiculous. Impractical.”

“No,” she says, “Not a castle, a fortress. A _Citadel_.”

“I know of a place,” Joe said, and rolled out a map. “I’ll claim it so we can honeymoon there.”

“A honeymoon.” She said flatly. “That would imply we’re getting married.”

“Yes it would.” Joe said airily, “You have a problem with that?”

“Not particularly, no, but you _could_ have asked.”

"I just did."

She huffed, but she was mostly amused, glad because it solidified his support for her, and her place next to him in this ghastly world. And she was fond of him. Joe got things done, things she had no patience or inclination for, rallied people around him, and created a point of stability and sanity that was rare and getting rarer. Wouldn't be the worst reason people got married.

Moreover he respected her, respected her brilliance, and she allowed it to overshadow some of the things she saw, the way he'd occasionally tell her one of his men wasn't worth the supplies to fix him. The doctor in her was annoyed at not being allowed to _try_ , to defeat the odds, because snatching victory from the jaws of defeat was what she loved to do. But in this new world, in this wasteland, supplies were scarce. It made sense to triage, to spend supplies only on those most worth them.  

Once they’ve taken the Citadel and he gained a new name, their armies regrouped and started making it liveable, and she watches them scurry about from the peak. _Joe is leader of this place_ , she thought, _and he calls me his wife_. And when he came up behind her and put his arms around her, when they talked about plans for crops, for fuel, for supplies for her infirmary, she convinced herself that she owned him too.

Refugees started coming, especially once Gastown and the Bullet Farm got claimed and stabilized. And once everyone stopped being on the run, they started fucking like the world was ending.

“We don’t have the supplies for them, not all these people and the children,” she snapped, and stabbed her finger angrily at the figures. “We need more tunnels in general, more space. And some way to police them. There’s too many incidences of violence and rape; at least leash your _dogs_ away from the girls.”

“We can have separate quarters for the women, somewhere they can be safe,” Joe agreed, and she calmed a bit, “And you’re right on the supplies, we’ll have to close to newcomers unless they have some useful skill, at least until the crops are in.”

As the seasons passed, life at the Citadel stabilized, and when she heard the rumors about what was happening in the cities, she thought it was perhaps the most stable place left in the world. Maybe there were never enough crops to be able to allow the wretched people below to be provided a place, and maybe they had to make the women’s quarters permanent because Joe's army boys were terrible at taking no for an answer and keeping it in their pants, and maybe it felt like society had stepped back several hundred years into one of those old asian period pieces she grew up on, tribal and warring, though without all the fancy costumes. But. It was a place where people worked and ate and she healed them if they got injured, providing they were worth spending her ever-dwindling supplies on.

Her disquiet at discovering she was pregnant was almost soothed by Joe's pleasure at the prospect of getting a heir. He held her close, big hand covering her belly.

“I bet he’ll be as smart as you,” he praised, and she smiled.

She didn’t say she hoped that the baby would be as strong as him; strength was all fine and good but it was skill and brains that were more lasting.

Joe blinked at her, waiting, and then dropped his hand.

 

She lost the pregnancy at three months, and she looked at the blood in dismay. Despite all her knowledge about the human body, failing at this hadn't even occurred to her. She'd never failed at anything before. It even made her a little angry, and when in half a year she was pregnant again, she agreed readily to take things slower. She became her own primary client and was pleased at how willing Joe was to appease all her cravings and make sure she got the best of things, the best of food, the best of care, books and journals to keep her mind active, and he even found another medic to both hold down her infirmary while she was gone and to help her out what she couldn’t take care of for herself.

The pains came in the middle of her second trimester.

"It's the air." Joe said, when he saw the disfigured fetus she passed. "I'm going to make a place for you, where the air is filtered. I shouldn’t have let you been exposed to everything, we knew about the nukes going off and I’d promised to keep you _safe_.”

She looked at him tiredly, didn’t even know quite how to parse his anger, feeling drained.

“I can't lose you,” he cried out, “What would I do without you? You're the only one I have.”

Getting up carefully, she limped over to where he was sitting with his head in his hands and placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling awkward with the action. Exhausted. He was so distraught, even more so than she was and she was pissed off that all that time and work was _wasted_ , that the miscarriage hurt so much and that her legs were shaking and that she was crying for no damn reason, and _why was she this upset at—_ she hadn’t even particularly _wanted_ kids. But she felt awful, and Joe said it was his fault and that he’d fix it and she believed him.

The huge room he built for her was beautiful inasmuch as anything in this wasteland was beautiful, the glass dome letting in more light than anywhere in the Citadel. There were many plants, fruits growing there and it had been years now since she'd had regular access to fruit. She got the best of everything.

The door was shut so the air would stay pure, and guarded so his Boys wouldn't bother her. She needed rest and calm to grow his baby, he said. Only Joe and the new medic visited her, asked her advice, discussed the Citadel with her. What to do about the food, about the population, about making sure the newly termed war boys wouldn't try to grab power for themselves. She’d sunk herself into reading about politics, agriculture, and alternative medicines; low cost methods with high yields, acupuncture, hypnosis, herbs. Things that she’d dismissed before for being too hand wavy except now supplies were precious and they’d try anything if it _worked_.

A surprising amount of it worked. He brought her interesting cases or men he’d liked fixed and she went ahead and practiced on these bodies because it wasn’t like _they_ were a scarce resource. She’d gotten so good that it felt like she could trace their energies by feel, sense the hot and coolness as the body’s biomechanical system regulated itself through the laylines of blood and lymph, could almost see the swirl of it on the surface of skin, and know exactly how to fix the blockages. It’d honestly distracted her for long enough that it took her awhile to realize that—

"I am going crazy on my own here," she told him after two months.

"I'll find you some company." Joe told her.

Her name was Ophelia She'd been living in the women's quarters, and Joe must have picked her with care, she was smart and sharp. A poet by trade, a musician by hobby, and a sociologist by schooling; so, not of much use except for entertaining.

Ophelia exclaimed about how nice the dome was; much nicer than the women's quarters where she'd been living, where the door was always barred against the warboys. She hadn't gotten out much apart from on the organised 'date nights'.

"It's these times where they bring us out and I guess it's a little like a party? Warboys are there and… well, people pair off a lot.” She laughed, but towards the end it sounded a little strained, “not much of a way to date, right? And it’s not much like any of them are worth marrying.”

“It’s not like finding a CEO or a lawyer is any good in this age,” Christina pointed out, “And as for doctors, Angus is a bit…”

“Yeah,” Ophelia nodded, “kind of a neckbeard.”

Joe visited them sometimes, made it like a dinner party. He'd found a piano somewhere that made a halfway decent sound, and Ophelia loved to play on it for them, beautiful music that seemed somehow alien in this place. For those nights the world didn't feel so wasted. Joe was always very charming, and it reminded her of parties they’d had what seemed like another world ago, making both her and Ophelia laugh helplessly. It always reminded her of why he caught her attention, and he would stay the night with her in her bedroom.

It was only after a few months that she noticed he mostly only did that during certain stages of her cycle.

He was so happy she got pregnant again, she could almost be happy too.

And when four months later she miscarried a blob of misshapen flesh she was glad for the opportunity to scream.

“I gave you _everything! Everything_ you wanted.” Joe shouted, “Everything you needed I got for you, how is that you just—”

“You think I _wanted_ this?! You think I wanted to keep—!”

“ _Failing_?”  

Christina sucked in a breath because she’d thought that at herself.

“Because that’s what you’re doing, _this one simple thing_ that you’re designed for!”

“How could you— that’s not—” she’d never thought that he’d be one of those types of men, he valued how brilliant she was, so how—

“It’s women’s _role_ , how can’t you see that?!” He fumed, eyes wild, “Men provide and women give birth, strong dams breed strong foals, it’s the natu—”

“Don’t even _dare_ compare me to an animal for breeding!” She flung her arm at the window, “And what in all this is natural, what? Tell me. None of this is natural!”

“Don’t make excuses for how you—” Joe paused, “Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s you. Maybe you’ve turned sour, like the dirt, you certainly aren’t sweet.”

She’d raged at him until he stormed off, as Angus scratched a line into his hand with an inked needle.

“What, counting our arguments now?”

“Something like.” he agreed.

 

Joe didn't visit her for what felt like a long time, left her locked in her pretty tower room with not even his attentions and gifts to divert her. Sometimes Ophelia was collected from the dome room and brought to Joe, and the first time the girl was flattered and flustered, but soon she started coming back quiet and uneasy.

Hopefully it was just that she was worried that Christina was angry or jealous. Joe had always been a decent enough lover, and Christina might be angry with him still, but it was hard to imagine - no, the woman was just sensitive to her mood. Christina wasn't angry or jealous, though being ignored was starting to strain on her.

Ophelia hardly ever played the piano anymore. Their rooms were very silent, with maybe the rustle of leaves and the way the air quivered with heat during noontimes. Christina looked at her references and felt she could almost see the plants breathing, though maybe that was just the effect of this world.

At night the desert was starting to swirl with color, a radioactive blue.

“Do you see that?” she asked Ophelia absently one time as she watched it, when the silence got too much.

“See… see what?” Ophelia asked tentatively.

“Blue, the whole desert glows blue. And look, _there_ , paler and redder where those Wretched huddle.”

“I don’t see anything,” Ophelia replied. “It’s, it’s just dark, night time. Are you sure… Um, I can get Angus to check—”

“ _No_. I don’t want him here.”

And then it was silent again, and Ophelia edged back to her room. But Christina knew what she saw, she wasn't crazy, she _wasn't_.

 

After three months it was announced that Ophelia was pregnant.

Christina felt… nothing much. With everything feeling like the world’s gone back in time, she’s almost not surprised at Joe getting a second wife, hell, maybe get him a third. Maybe now Joe'd get his heir and things would go back to the way they'd been, when he'd talked to her, valued her, asked her advice. He certainly seemed in a good mood. When he began visiting her again, apology coming awkward off his tongue, she welcomed it; made an effort to be less sharp like he’d made an effort to admit he was wrong. He rewarded her with his attention, with sometimes letting her come down to the infirmary for a particularly interesting medical case or if one of his Imperators was injured and needed the best care Joe could offer.

Frankly, being down there for the first time in, was it a year? Two? It was hard to remember out here, where seasons were meaningless and all days looked the same. Maybe it was longer than she thought, because she was shocked at how bad conditions had gotten since her maternity leave. Diseases seemed rampant, along with malnutrition and, was that self-mutilation? It looked like a _design_ , and like the war boy was pleased with it.

The infirmary stank worse than anything she’d ever encountered, worse than any GI bleed even if the wound had necrotized, and she scolded Angus for it. But he just mumbled it weren't nothing like a proper hospital. Christina couldn’t disagree with that, nearly gagging from the smell and she was very glad that she wasn’t down here during her morning sickness.

She’d found herself breathing a sigh of relief when she was back in the filtered air of the vault, when the vault door closed behind her, and made it a point to be nicer to Joe when he visited that night during dinner.

 

For a while things were good again. He praised her intelligence, said often that he still hoped for a child with her smarts for his heir. By the time Ophelia was entering her third trimester, fitting awkwardly behind the piano, Christina agreed to try for another child.

"This one will make it, I can sense it," she said as she lay next to Joe in the darkness of her bedroom, her hand on her stomach.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.

"I’m going stir-crazy. Ophelia hardly talks anymore." She complained, “I know you’re busy but—”

“I’ll find someone.” Joe promised.

 

Cadence was very pretty, and very skinny. She looked around the dome as if it were paradise, and Christina spent weeks closely supervising her eating and activity, trying to make sure she got stronger without making herself sick. She'd been living on the ground outside the tower until she'd caught Joe's eye, and was almost embarrassingly grateful to Joe when he visited.

They were both there as Ophelia labored, struggling, but Christina could already sense it. _Something felt wrong_.

The girl died within minutes. Lungs too small to breath on its own.

Ophelia went even more silent afterwards.

And Christina was not surprised that Cadence became pregnant. She was not surprised when they were joined by Constance. And Clever. And Tincture.

And then Corpus was born, small-limbed and twisted, fighting for air.

"That's no good to me," Joe said when he saw her son. "He'll never make it. Not even worth nursing up."

Christina had never understood what people meant with 'mother instinct' until right that moment. She cradled her fragile little son closer to her chest and turned away from his touch. ”I may not have wanted children, and I still don’t like them, but I’m not a _sociopath_ ,” she hissed.

“Are you saying that I am?”

“I’m saying you’re acting like one!”

The other wives fluttered anxiously.

“You’re just distraught,” Cadence soothed her, turning quickly to Joe, “She’s just, it’s just post-partum depression, she doesn’t mean it. We’ll sort it out.”

"We're all upset, we had such hopes for your son," Clever said quickly.

"You can't mean to waste energy on that little mongrel. Not _you_ ," Joe said, ignoring them. "You’re too practical, I've always liked that about you. Have you gone _crazy_?"

“Call me crazy then, call me toxic like the wind,” she hissed, curling protectively around the baby. “Call me _feng le_.”

The other wives crowded in and separated them with soothing words towards Joe and begging words towards her, to _wait_.

 _Nobody wants to be back there, among the Wretched, starving, thirsty_ , they pleaded with her, _and how would you care for your son?_

 _Think of your position_ , they whispered. _You're the honoured first wife, he loves you like nobody else, don't throw that away._

She thought about it, as she held her tongue and as Corpus grew.

But the name stuck.

The name grew on her as her anger did, as she discovered how far she’d let herself be shut away and corralled and controlled, and realized how much power had been taken away from her, and how much independence. Realized how much she’d been blinded as she watched the wives cower in front of Joe and come back from his bed in tears, wondered how much of Joe’s love and fondness was a lie.

Feng concluded: All of it. But she leashed her anger because. Because...

Corpus was a sickly child, and it took all her knowledge and resources to nurse him past his toddler diseases. But he was smart, he spoke early and learned quickly. It gave her wry satisfaction that Joe's wish had come true; he had a son with her smarts, but without his strength.

He survived the three half-siblings that made it to full term, none the less. She'd lost count of all the miscarriages between all the wives. Three women had died in childbirth, Ophelia being one of them.

 

One day, when Corpus was five, Joe decided he might have a use for the boy after all, and had him collected each morning to spend the day in his presence. He was only returned to Feng late at night, babbling about what he’d seen before falling into an exhausted sleep.

The purpose she'd filled her last few years with abruptly disappeared. Not knowing what to do with herself, she tried to go out to visit the infirmary for the first time in years, and discovered she was no longer allowed to.

She held her tongue, a giant weight on her lungs, when one of the newer wives, Mercy, pulled her away from the door. They stood by the large windows and she tried and tried to breathe, wanting to tear it all away. All of this wasteland finery was around her but they were only _chains_.

“How much,” Mercy asked quietly, “Do you know of climbing.”

Feng took a moment to take in the side of the Citadel stretching out below them, the craggy mountainsides full of shadows and hidey-holes. She looked over.

Mercy’s eyes were full of steel, Feng thought, and full of anger that matched hers, “I know enough that I can learn it.”

“And I know you know enough of the Citadel for us to have someplace to go.”

“You’re not wrong,” Feng replied. She looked at Corpus' little bed, the books he no longer had time or energy for. “But I don’t think I can yet…”

“We’d need the to prepare, anyway.”

 

When her son started talking like Joe, she knew it was time.

 

They took with them a couple of the newer wives who’d hated their place, or were about to be discarded per Joe’s newest orders of Three Tries, and she found herself leading this group of women because they’ll always need doctors, they’ll always need skill, and they’ll always need a good amount of ruthlessness.

They’d needed it when Joe was in power and they’ll still need it now that Joe’s dead, and the only thing she regretted were those useless years where she’d forgotten herself.

Feng centered herself back to the present.

On time, as ordered, the old Warboy walked into the Infirmary. He looked around warily but did as he was told, removing his heavier items, and lying back on the metal mortician’s bed with its useful fluid gutters.

Feng watched with mild disgust as Furiosa hovered around that War boy while they put him under. Despite the world ending and despite all those years she was still holding hearts in her hands.

She went to work.

 

* * *

 

"Boss, you don't have to. I know you hate—" Ace said, eyeing her as she paced beside him. She looked tense, like there was a roiling storm just under her skin and it was taking work to contain it.  

"I do, and I will," she snapped, "and I'm no longer your _Boss_." She flinched a little.

Perhaps her words came out sharper than she'd intended, but Ace knew her feeling behind them and also figured she was just being sharpened by their location.

The Blood Shed— the _infirmary_ , it was called now, still vaguely felt the same. The walls and floors and ledges had been scrubbed down and chalked, the cages removed, and the Repair Boys had managed to hack out an additional channel for air so it didn't hardly smell of blood and death anymore. But something about the quality of light still made the place cold even at high noon. And Ace was unable to forget the Organic Mechanic, with all the revelations.

"I'm the one who's asked you to have it done."

He knew what it cost her to come here, even now.

"That don't mean you have to—"

She held up a hand, and he dropped the subject. It wasn't like that anymore between them, these days - he knew he was under no obligation to obey, and moreover, that she would not dismiss him from her bed, or stop caring about him, if he didn't. But he'd known her long enough to know when to stop trying to protect her from herself. If she had gotten it into her head that she needed to be there when he let Feng and Miss Gale cut at his tumors, she would be.

He wasn't the first to undergo this process; there were eight war boys now with neatly stitched wounds instead of lumps. Austeyr had healed well, so far. His stitches had been taken out the day before, and though he still needed to keep calm for a few days, he was thrilled with what he could feel so far, of his renewed mobility. Ace _was_ the first to be worked on who had tumors so closely against his throat though, and he knew this was not without risk.

Miss Gale had explained it in detail; that she thought it could be done, but that he might bleed out, or be paralyzed, or that they might have to opt for not removing everything if it was too dangerous. He nodded; the Boss knew what he would want in each of these scenarios.

Furiosa glanced at him, looking like she was trying not to shift her weight restlessly.

"You don't have to…"

"Boss, if it were you, and I asked, 'cause I didn't want to lose you sooner'n needed?"

 _"I don't know that I have the right, but I am asking you to go through with it," she'd said. "Because I'm— I'm greedy and selfish and…” And ‘_ I want you here _’, he had seen in her eyes._

He'd known almost from the start that she had rather kept him as crew than see him go to Valhalla, but there was still a part of him that lit up at being asked to stay with her, at being _wanted_ like this. Not even as her crew member, her ace, but as her _friend_.

"Valhalla can wait," he shrugged. If there even was a Valhalla.

She closed her mouth with a click, and Ace reached out to curl his hand around the back of her neck, kneaded the muscle until she sighed. He lightly knocked their foreheads together.   

Miss Gale gestured for him to stretch out on the metal table, and put the cup with the gas over his nose and mouth.

 

* * *

 

He counts until he blinks, and then the everything becomes slow and heavy, the daylight’s changed.

His neck really hurts, he’s not sure why.

There’s shouting.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So if you've seen Grey's Anatomy, surprise! Post-Apoc version of Christina Yang, minus Meredith, plus Australia, and had she been Chinese. Well and a couple other things, but. Yeah. Her backstory was kind of obvious to us until we realized that, oh, maybe people don't know it?
> 
> The backstory kinda got away from us, and we might write out the extended scenes from the Soundless years in a couple ficlets in an epilogue or something.


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